


Held in Muscle and Bone

by Deisderium



Series: The First Rule of Book Club [9]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Book Club, Bucky Barnes Feels, Gift Giving, Holidays, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Massage, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, POV Outsider, Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day Fluff, pals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-28 17:04:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17791322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deisderium/pseuds/Deisderium
Summary: Nat wants Bucky to get a massage, so she enlists Janelle to go with him.that's it, that's the fic.





	Held in Muscle and Bone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zacharypay1_Alisa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zacharypay1_Alisa/gifts).



Janelle is just getting into her car when her phone buzzes. She's done with work and kind of tired, but she checks it anyway, expecting Priya wanting to get together for a quick drink at that dive bar with the half-off wine Wednesdays, or maybe James letting her know that he's back from his trip to New York with Steve. 

Instead, her pulse trips at the sight of a blocked number and the familiar spider emoji.

🕷️: hey there, stranger

Janelle hesitates for a second. She's envisioned Natasha Romanova getting in touch more times than she will admit to anyone without at least three martinis in her, but she hasn't had a way to get in touch herself. Natasha's number always shows up blocked. 

_hey yourself_

_how've things been?_

🕷️: pretty good up here. maybe one of these days I'll get in town for one of your book club meetings

_i'd like that_

Janelle hesitates, then hits send. Actually, she'd _really_ like that, but she's trying to maintain a thin veneer of cool around Natasha instead of coming over as awkwardly enthusiastic as she'd really like to. 

🕷️: I'll let you know ;)

Before Janelle can really process the winky face, her phone buzzes again. 

🕷️: I have a present/favor to ask

_sure, happy to_

🕷️: let me tell you what it is first

🕷️: the adjustment's Tony's been making to James's arm are a pain right after as his muscles adjust

🕷️: I'm sending you 2 passes to a massage for you and him

🕷️: will you go with him? he might not go if i just give him one and tell him to but it'll really help him

_of course, sure thing_

_thank u_

_but pls know i'm srs about you coming to book club_

🕷️: don't worry

🕷️: so am i

🕸️🕷️🕸️

By the time Janelle gets home, there's an email from a do-not-reply address with two passes to a very fancy spa that she's heard a lot about but never been to. She texts James that she has a surprise for when he gets back in town, and two days later he shows up at her work to take her out to the Indian place down the street that can get them in and out on her lunch hour. 

"How was New York?" Janelle is busy scooping up chana masala with her naan, but she watches James. 

"It was all right." He shrugs, and then winces. "Check up on the arm. Not actually all that fun." 

"Steve was there with you, right?" 

He shoots her a grin. "Yeah, we hit some of our old stomping grounds in Brooklyn. It was nice."

"Do you ever miss it?" 

He shrugs again. She catches the hitch in the movement only because she's watching for it. "Sure. But the places I miss are mostly long gone. The only thing I really miss is Steve when he's not here." 

Janelle takes a giant bite of her samosa so James won't see how cute she thinks this is. 

"That's really sweet, James," she says when she thinks the danger of spewing crumbs on him is mostly past. He ducks his head, pretending his only interest is his butter chicken. "Hey, Natasha sent me two passes for us to go get massages," she blurts out next, because she feels weird that she hasn't told him yet. 

He swallows a gulp of water and laughs, head thrown back. "I fucking knew she was up to something," he says, but it's affectionate. "She knew I'd punk out, so she roped you in." 

"We don't have to." Janelle catches his eye so he knows she's serious. "I mean, if it's going to bug you, don't do it. I'll give it to Priya. Natasha just thought it'd help with your shoulder." 

He rips a piece of naan into many smaller pieces. "It probably would, yeah. I just...not many people have touched me. Besides Steve and you and our friends. And, um...." 

"You don't have to do it," Janelle says again. 

"I know." He kicks her foot under the table. "Maybe let's give it a try." 

💖💖💖

They end up going on Valentine's Day, not because it's Valentine's Day but because Steve thought he was going to be there, but he got called away at the last minute, and Janelle doesn't really think James is _actually_ upset, but she doesn't want to let him be by himself _either_ , and the massage passes are just taking up space under her Van Gogh magnets on her fridge. The place is pretty full, because Valentine's Day, but they manage to work them in early, and Janelle plans on taking them both out for a very late lunch or a very early dinner at this grilled cheese place that started life as a food truck that serves booze and is unlikely to be crowded.

It's actually kind of hilarious, because the lady behind the desk very clearly thinks they are here as a couple and gives them champagne and extremely fluffy robes.

"Is this weird?" Janelle says when the two of them are momentarily alone. "I mean, they're going to have us stripped and lying down on the tables and stuff."

"Nah," James says. "I've seen you in your sports bra at the gym, I don't care if you don't. I'm not going to look. I'm glad you're here with me. I wouldn't do this alone."

She grabs his hand for a second, the right one, and squeezes, and he shoots her a nervous smile. Right then the—masseuses? massage therapists?—walk in. There are two of them, both women, both smiling.

"I'm Ronita, and this is Gudrun," the older one says. "Let's get both of you on the tables, how does that sound?"

Janelle shoots James a look, and he shrugs maybe one eighth of an inch, and then Janelle lies down and lets her robe slide to the side, and kind of turns her head just enough that she can see James on the table next to her. It isn't weird that she has her shirt off, she tells herself. Literally _no one_ can see her boobs, and no one but her cares about them. The masseuses are professionals, and even if James cared, she's pretty sure Steve's are bigger.

"Take your time," Ronita says to James, who still has the robe on.

James hesitates for just a little bit longer, then slides the terrycloth off his shoulders and lays down.

"Oh," Gudrun says, and Janelle really looks at the metal arm. James usually wears long-sleeved shirts at the gym, even in the summer, and Janelle has only seen it in full when he was all geared up like the Winter Soldier in Bucharest. She's never seen where the metal attaches to the shoulder, never seen the scarring. The thought of how much it must have hurt makes her chest ache. She stretches her arm across the gap between them, and after a long moment, James reaches out and gently squeezes her fingers with his metal hand before letting go again.

"Do you have any pain through your back and shoulder?" Ronita asks.

"A lot of the time," James says. "It's better than it used to be."

Gudrun comes over to Janelle and asks her if she has any problem areas, which she doesn't, and then Gudrun is forcefully manipulating the muscle between her shoulder blades and Janelle make an embarrassing grunt like she just picked up something _very heavy_ , and then she feels like she’s melting into a pool of goo as her muscles and her spine are pummeled into submission. Gudrun is smaller than Janelle, but she feels like the Terminator.

Ronita murmurs softly the whole time she works on James, explaining what she's doing. "There's a knot of tension here," she murmurs at one point, and Janelle reclaims her executive function as best she can from under Gudrun's knuckles, which are driving her trapezius into her collarbones, and turns her head again. She imagines _most_ of James is knots of tension, and when she gets him in her sights, yeah, his jaw is square enough that he's got to be gritting his teeth, but over the course of the hour, he relaxes. 

At the beginning, he just looks like he's braced to get punched, but by the end he's boneless and lazy, sprawling like a big cat. "You should come back," Ronita says. "Regular visits would keep some of those trouble areas from troubling you so much."

"Thanks," James say, and shrugs back into his robe.

"There's a sauna and a hot tub if you want to use them," Gudrun says, "right down that hallway."

Janelle gets into her robe a little less gracefully, and then she and James look at each other and mutually decide without speaking that they've spent as much naked time together today as two friends need to spend, and that their time is best spent not with sweat, but with mimosas and trading halves of a pork belly grilled cheese sandwich and a Cuban. They get extra fries, because James can and will eat pounds of fried potatoes and Janelle wants to be sure she gets some.

"Do you think you'll go back?" Janelle asks when all that's left on her plate are a few errant fries and the cheesy crusts (which James totally steals when she's not looking.)

"Yeah." He chases a bit of melted cheese with one of her fries. "I think I might." He rolls his shoulder back. "It feels good. Plus, I think Nat might have given Ronita a heads up about me."

Janelle shrugs. She wouldn't be surprised in the slightest. "Was it okay?"

"Not at first. I tensed up, made it worse." He picks up his half-empty drink and clinks it against hers. "But."

He waits, and they both drink. When he doesn't go on, she says, "But?"

"I was ready for it to be weird to have someone touch me, and it was. I wasn't expecting it to be weird to have someone see the arm, I don't know why."

"Well, sure," she says, indignant on his behalf. "Nobody ever looks but Steve, right?"

"Well...Tony. The doctors in New York."

"Sure, but not normal people."

"I'm going to tell Tony you said that."

She kicks him under the table. "He lives in a tower and built his own robot suit, you know what I mean."

"Yeah." He throws back the rest of his mimosa. "I couldn't have done it if you hadn't been there, so thanks."

She kicks him again, but in a gentle, loving way, actually really moved but trying not to be completely obvious about it. "If you want to go back, I could resign myself to feeling every bit of tension I've ever held beaten out of my body, I guess."

"Maybe I'll take you up on it," he says, and then they just talk bullshit until the check comes.

Then Janelle drives him home, and they're both surprised to see a large blond man with a scrape on his face and a bouquet of sunflowers waiting on the stoop of James's building.

"Steve?" James says.

Steve pushes himself to his feet, his face lighting up, and wraps his giant arms around James's waist, sunflowers forming a line against James's spine. "Finished earlier than expected," Steve murmurs into James's neck, "and I didn't want to wait to see you. Hi, Janelle," he adds, as they break apart maybe three inches.

"Hi, Steve," Janelle says, and then gets the Steve Rogers hug, which frankly almost does the same work as Gudrun, but then he sets her down, and well, it _is_ Valentine's Day, and they really only have eyes for each other. "Let me know if y'all want to get together later." She gets back in her car.

"I'll text you tomorrow," James yells before he and Steve are mushing their faces together, and that's her cue to leave.

💖💖💖

🕷️: so how did the massage go?

_it went great, thank u_

_i think it really helped him_

🕷️: okay good but he could tell me that

🕷️: i wanted to know if YOU liked it

🕷️: do you think you'd want to go again

Janelle rolls on her back and grins, then starts typing her answer.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Alisa asked for a fic about Bucky getting a massage--i hope this hits the spot, friend! 
> 
> Happy Valentine's, Galentine's, and Palentine's Day, everyone! 
> 
> I have had a massage once and never had a couples' massage, so *waves hands* I asked google and then made shit up. I *have* had some fancy grilled cheese sandwiches, and look, they were good.


End file.
